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Armenia’s opposition has claimed that the authorities have taken no step over the past month for returning Armenia to the democratic path as demanded by Europe, saying that this failure makes their continued struggle warranted.

Levon Zurabyan, a senior representative of the Popular Movement led by first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, reiterated on Wednesday the plans of the opposition to go ahead with the rally scheduled for August 1 despite a ban by Yerevan’s municipality.

“In the created situation, the Armenian people have nothing to do but raise a strong wave of protest and uprising for the purpose of restoring their violated rights,” Zurabyan said. “The August 1 rally in this sense will have a pivotal importance in the struggle for restoring freedom and democracy.”

Evaluating the position of the authorities, the opposition representative called President Serzh Sargsyan’s recent press conference a generalization of that:

“At his press conference on July 21, Serzh Sargsyan made two important revelations – the first is that he is not going to engage in a dialogue with the opposition and secondly that he is not going to meet the demand of the opposition, and in reality that of the whole society, to release political prisoners.”

In Zurabyan’s evaluation, while before the June 25 session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) the Armenian authorities made some attempts to release prisoners and released dozens of people, then immediately after that session those attempts, in fact, stopped, as only three people have been released since then.

“In reality, the authorities have no aim of restoring democracy in Armenia, they display a deep disregard towards the Council of Europe demands, in reality they are engaged in petty cheating, trying to cheat Council of Europe officials,” Zurabyan added.

Meanwhile, according to the opposition representative, the two PACE resolutions clearly mention that dialogue is needed “between political forces” for overcoming the current political crisis.

“In reality, Serzh Sargsyan makes up excuses to avoid negotiations,” Zurabyan contended.

Zurabyan would not elaborate on details of the planned rally. He only said that if the opposition’s four demands are not fulfilled by August 1, they will turn Sargsyan’s resignation into the movement’s motto.

During its latest rally on July 4 the opposition demanded that the president and the authorities in particular release their fellow oppositionists, stop political persecutions, expose and convict those responsible for the March 1 violence as well as sack several government officials.

By Sara Khojoyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Source: http://www.armenianow.com

Permanent link:  http://www.armpress.com/armenianow/2008/07/25/1229/

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